Healthcare Alert

(VIDEO: ABCActionNews)

EDITOR’S NOTE:Holidays are often associated with a lot of rich food, high anxiety and excitement, long hours and staying up late, and hard partying involving plenty of alcohol. BEWARE–this combination is a set up for even healthy people to develop the “holiday heart syndrome,” an abnormal heart rhythm caused by binge drinking and overeating that often occurs during holiday festivities.

Enjoy the holidays, but make sure you enjoy them in moderation, especially when it comes to food and alcohol. Avoid heavy meals and foods high in salt, stagger alcoholic beverages, drink plenty of water, don’t binge drink and be sure to stay away from the combination of energy drinks, like Red Bull, and alcohol.

We at SpaceCoastDaily.com wish you and yours a Blessed and Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Healthy New Year.

MEDPAGETODAY.COM – Hearts are light during the holidays — so light they may be more inclined to fibrillate.

Around Christmas and New Year’s, emergency departments brace for a rise in cases of “holiday heart syndrome,” or isolated incidents of atrial fibrillation in otherwise healthy people who simply eat and drink too much.

“It’s this combination ofalcohol and overeating,” said Robert Glatter, MD, an emergency department physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. “Patients get so full, and they start to get palpitations.”

Although it’s mainly attributed to alcohol, add to the mix caffeine, excessive amounts of food, and lack of sleep, and you have the perfect recipe for cardiac effects, Glatter noted.